


Progress

by PurpleSunrise



Series: California Soul (Cali Soul) [1]
Category: The Last of Us
Genre: Abby/Ellie - Freeform, All major cannon events happen and are referenced, Angst, Dom/sub, Enemies to Lovers, Explicit Sexual Content, F/F, Hurt/Comfort, No Beta, Porn WITH plot/actually does have plot, See start of work notes for warnings, Smut, Top Ellie, Trauma, mostly cannon-compliant, unproofed
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-07
Updated: 2020-07-07
Packaged: 2021-03-04 17:33:38
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,874
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25130185
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PurpleSunrise/pseuds/PurpleSunrise
Summary: FULL SPOILERS for Part 2.An Abby/Ellie, enemies-to-lovers, hurt/comfort into smut fic. Nearly cannon-compliant/squint hard enough and it could be.Warnings for trauma, violence, traumatic cannon events, very strong language, explicit sex with dom/sub elements and a controversial pairing. There are more detailed warnings in the chapter notes, and please remember: DLDR. Ie Don’t like, don’t read :)Not at all proofread: written in an afternoon as a break from ongoing fics, so expect mistakes.
Relationships: Abby/Ellie, Abby/Ellie (The Last of Us)
Series: California Soul (Cali Soul) [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1824577
Comments: 15
Kudos: 127





	Progress

**Author's Note:**

> FULL SPOILERS for Part 2.
> 
> This is an Abby/Ellie enemies->lovers hurt/comfort and smut fic and it’s one where Abby still did all the things she did in cannon. Said actions also come up in this fic, (as well as some of Ellie’s actions) including some arguably graphic details. Includes top-level swearing. 
> 
> There’s some minor dom/sub vibes with begging (top Ellie) as well. There’s also several mentions of the Rattlers and one mention could be taken as implying that Abby was raped (I think this is ambiguous, and I leave it that way but there’s some comments that might read that way.)
> 
> This is currently a one-shot, but it’s also the starting point of a larger fic goal I have to build out an cannon-compliant but believable backstory for further Abby/Ellie fics, so I’m really interested to hear what fellow A/E shippers do or don’t find believable/in character about that element of this fic.
> 
> There’s minor cannon divergence from just after Ellie tells Abby to leave after the final fight. 
> 
> Constructive feedback is always appreciated, I really love getting reader comments. 
> 
> I hope you enjoy.

Ellie is talking in her sleep as she has a nightmare, “Please stop, please stop!” Abby lays next to her wracked with guilt. How could she not have listened? Not have heard herself in Ellie, when they were so similar? She should wake Ellie up, but to say what? “It’s a nightmare”? It’s real, all of it. It happened, and at my hand, no less. Maybe she is a monster, she certainly was one that day. Still, Ellie shouldn’t suffer the reliving it if it can be helped. 

“El, Ellie, wake up, wake up.” She shakes her, too, gradually more vigorously until Ellie’s eyes jolt open. “Joel?!” She yells, just as she wakes. “No, just me,” Abby says, filled with shame. Ellie notices. With the time and events that have passed, Ellie has forgiven, knowing Abby only did what she would have done in her place given half the chance, but that leaves behind a tension. Without Abby’s remorse, forgiveness — let alone the relationship they have now —would never have been possible. But with the remorse, there’s often an intense guilt that overtakes her new lover, and that’s not always easy to handle, not when it hits so close to home.

—  
“I didn’t know she was pregnant.”

“What?”

“Your friend, I didn’t know...

I was trying to get information from them, I had a gun on them but I was outnumbered and Owen attacked. They didn’t say anything about the baby until it was too late.”

“Okay.”

“Is it...does it make me a complete cunt that sometimes between the guilt I feel, I feel mad at them for not telling me? Like, how could you not say something like that? It’s a horrible world but there’s still people who would care about it. I would have cared about it. I would have let her fucking go. It’s my fault, I guess, but I hate them for not giving me a chance, for not protecting the baby. I know I’m not the most morally upstanding person out there but I tried everything to protect Dina, to hide the fact she was even there, when you can to find us. Maybe I’m just trying to sherk the blame here, but who the fuck doesn’t tell a dude with a gun on them something like that? 

I know I was... but still...” She trails off. “So... does that make me an even bigger cunt than I am already for killing them, the fact I blame them for it too?” 

“I... don’t know...”

They sit in silence for awhile. Every time either of them shares some new piece of information, their whole person seems to be repainted anew in the other’s mind. It’s a lot to keep up with, each step comes with new empathy, new guilt, new conflict and an ever-growing sense that each might be the only person in the world that could truly understand the other.

—

Ellie strokes Abby’s now short hair, trying to soothe the guilt as she tries to soothe her own pain. She never saw Jeremy’s body, but she saw enough of her adoptive father’s handiwork to imagine it. She loves Joel with all her heart, but she came to love him knowing his flaws, knowing that he killed innocents. When the image of his beaten body forces itself into her mind, she tries to picture Jeremy’s body next to him, tries to recall that he made his choices prepared for the consequences. A conversation with Abby about the run-up to his death, about how readily he accepted the possibility that someone wanted revenge and faced the reality of death, brought her some comfort. 

The pain was still overwhelming at times, but she tried to take comfort from some of his last words, “I’d do it all over again,” he said to her one night. The next day, when faced with certain death, he readily accepted that there would be those seeking revenge and didn’t argue for his life. She put those things together and reminded herself of what everyone who knew Joel well knew in their bones: if you told him that saving Ellie would see him be tortured to death for it 4 years later, he’d have bitten your hand off to take that deal. 

Ellie looks down at her missing fingers and laughs at the unfortunate turn of phase. She still loves a pun, but she more often finds herself indulging in gallows humour these days than she does her old pun books. Her comments aren’t always the most suitable for Lev, though, so she has tried to get into the habit of thinking before she speaks. She’s already taught him enough swears, she should probably save the gallows humour for a few years yet. 

Oh, Lev. At first he was the unevenly applied yet ultra tough glue that held their uneasy alliance together against their will. [i] He won’t survive unless we have help. [/i] Then he became the only reason either of them felt compelled to live, each miserable and uncertain for the future, but both quietly recognising that he was better off with two adults than one. Twice as likely that an adult would survive with him if the worse happened, more than twice as likely to avoid the worst because the two had such different skills. Had they known more of history, they might have compared the situation to a much-decorated all-American soldier joining forces with a master guerrilla of the Viet Cong. Abby had by far the most impressive set of weapons Ellie had ever seen (not to mention her *other* guns, which were still pretty damn impressive even after months with the Rattlers, and grew back more by the day, a process that Ellie didn’t not enjoy spectating, if she was honest.) but couldn’t even make a effective Molotov, let alone set an explosive trap to give them the background protection they needed to relax any. The only bombs Abby could make were so slow and wasteful that Ellie took the explosives operation over completely, making double the explosives with the same gear and just handing the finished product back to Abby when she’d finished.

They taught each other things, but they also remained fundamentally different in complimentary ways, beyond what their skill shares could compensate for. Besides, before long both of them had bonded with the kid, and if their respective losses had taught them a thing, it was that no amount of personal animosity was worth depriving yet another kid of yet another parental figure. So they tried to get along. Odd, awkward conversations filled in gaps and gradually each saw the other’s former brutality make increasing sense. 

Abby also recognised that a queer presence in his life was undoubtably good for Lev. Being a lesbian didn’t make Ellie an expert in being trans, but she’d read enough books scavenged from LGBT sections of old bookstores to know a hell of a lot more than Abby. Moreover, there was something of an affinity that having relatively similar differences granted them. They could talk together about the fears and realities of prejudice, and Ellie always ended these heavy conversations by getting Lev to laugh, often by offering him “bigot sandwiches,” whatever they were. It felt like a joke only someone who had been there them-self could make. Maybe someday they’d be close enough that Abby could ask... [i] But then again, since when did she care? [/i]

And so by the time the burns, stitches and infections that brought them together had healed and parting ways might actually have been safe, it was too late. No-one mentioned it when things reached that stage. It was easier not to.

—  
The most conflicting part at first had been the need to tend to one another. The touches were always clinical, but even if you hate the wounded, enough time tending the wound will make you invested in its journey to healing. Abby hadn’t been touched consensually - save for occasional hugs from Lev - since she had miserable, desperate sex with a tipsy Owen. She’d only done it in an effort to prove she wasn’t the monster Owen seemed to think she’d become, but afterward she felt even more the monster than before. Ellie’s touch wasn’t like Lev’s, or Owen’s, or even any of the Rattler’s. She had the hands of someone who did this stuff more than she’d care to discuss but without more than a trivial amount of medical training. That made her a little slower than a true medic, slightly more considered and often more thorough. Abby felt odd that at times she found comfort in this touch, and tried not to think about it. Until one night her mind decided to make her think about it.

She dreamed of those hands, her “enemy”’s hands, buried inside her. Unlike Owen, Ellie kept her face to face as she thrusted and never let up on the pressure against her clit. She was subtly - but effectively - toppy in her attitude, a slight smugness tingeing her otherwise affectionate, attentive gaze. She must have been very slyly edging Abby, because the pleasure seemed to be moving as fast as if she were taking the expressway, but her orgasm had took the time, and had the eventual increased intensity, of the scenic route. 

Abby woke up as she came in her dream. She looked around to find that, thank God, Ellie and Lev were fast asleep. She hadn’t orgasmed from her dream alone, but she was deeply aroused. She tried not to think about how she’d gotten to be quite so wet and quite so close to orgasm as she got out of bed. Once she was safely in a separate room with the door shut, she tried to think of anything but Ellie as she brought herself to an easy climax, but Ellie’s face — with that unbearably hot blend of smugness and affectionate — reappeared in her mind as she came.  
—  
Abby had had friends who were bisexual, and the idea didn’t really phase her. She realised that, having never bothered to fancy anyone after Owen, her boyfriend from *before*, she had no reason to be surprised that she could be bisexual. But the idea of developing feeling for *her*, for Ellie, was more than she could handle, so she tried the write the whole thing off as weird one-off sleep fantasy that meant nothing. One sex dream was no good reason to think she was bisexual, let alone interested in Ellie. So surely it meant nothing...

She was surely wrong, but needed more time to realise it.  
—

Back in the present, these issues are much closer to resolved, but still linger in air around them. There’s now at least as much forgiveness and empathy as there is pain between the two of them, and the scales tip more and more towards love than hate every day. Ellie is tender with her, and is at least as good in bed as she was in Abby’s dreams. The decision to have sex is always in a odd moment of spontinaety and the aftermath is never *quite* comfortable, but the everyday touches as straightforwardly tender these days. Two somewhat broken women, both afflicted with nightmares where the awful memories of losing their fathers co-mingle with the knowledge of their own evils, know how to comfort one another. One day, they’ll have to talk about it, vocalise all their unspoken conversations and unpick the meaning. But not yet, not today.

Today, Abby just wants the simple comfort of their unspoken affair. Softly, she asks if Ellie is okay, and finds that Ellie doesn’t recall the nightmare. That’s good. She doesn’t use her voice for the next part of the conversation. With a few subtleties of body language that Ellie has come to recognise, Abby offers herself, begging to loved despite the monster she is and wanting to soothe the monster she had a hand in creating. Ellie smiles in response, her way of saying yes, then speaks on a safe subject: “Gimme five minutes, gotta pee and I’ll check on Lev while I’m up.” 

Abby nods, and then there’s a breakthrough. Ellie leans in to kiss Abby, and for the first time puts some words to what they’re doing. “You try and relax while I’m gone, babe, and don’t doubt I’m looking forward to it.”

—  
Abby can’t relax, but she tries to at least focus on what’s coming next. She’s picked up some idea of how to please Ellie, how sex works with another woman, but she lacks confidence and tries to recall what worked best the last time. She does better with her mouth, something Ellie seems to prefer in any case, so she’ll try to a good job with that. She tries to recall what she likes when Ellie goes down on her, but her memories are too hazy with pleasure. Before she figures anything much out, the door opens.

“Lev is still asleep, so no worries there.” Then Ellie dares, once again, to speak openly about their formerly unacknowledged affair. Her eyes are heavy with lust as she looks straight at Abby. “You still want me to fuck you, Abby?”

She receives a groan in response. The groan is unmistakably eager, a clear yes, but Ellie has unconsciously decided to play hardball, some part of her wanting them to begin to process whatever it is that’s happening between the two of them. She walks towards the bed and then manoeuvres on top of Abby, who is laid flat on her back. Ellie doesn’t pin her down, yet, holding her body above Abby’s so they aren’t in physical contact. “I’m going to need a better answer than that. I suggest you use your words.” 

Abby’s breath picks up, Ellie’s never looked hotter and speaks demands that aren’t easy to fulfil. After a few seconds, she sighs out a “Yes.” Ellie smiles, then poses another question, “I have an inkling that you’d enjoy having to beg, Abby, am I reading that right?” *Shit. Is this girl a mind-reader?* “I... haven’t done that before, but it sounds, yeah when I think about it, I guess. Not yet, though, more when I’m, I’m erm...”

“Getting needy?” 

“Mm, That’ll help.” She mumbles out. 

“Oh, Abby, don’t worry, I’ll make it easy for you.” Ellie’s cocky, but with her track record it’s justified, and Abby swears she feels herself get wetter from the words.

Ellie stands in place from a few seconds, eyeing Abby up. It’s been characteristically hot in California and she’s slept in only underwear. The muscle tone is returning and her skin has healed up into a glowing tan. Abby hasn’t realised she’s holding her breath in respond to the excruciating wait, until she gasps a breath in when Ellie moves to pin her down. 

Ellie’s careful with her position and the level of pressure she places on Abby’s wrists and legs. She wants Abby to feel pinned hard enough that breaking free would be difficult, but leave just enough back that her lover — still a very recent former captive of the sickest fucks Ellie has encountered in world where almost everyone is a sick fuck — doesn’t feel trapped enough to be frightened. Abby tests the restraint, bucking up against Ellie, and both women are reassured that Ellie has Abby just exactly as pinned as she wanted.

With that, Ellie goes in for a firm, passionate kiss. Abby’s lips feel soft against hers as they reach up to meet her kiss. Ellie’s hands lightly tickle the insides of the wrists she’s holding down, just where she’s learnt will provoke a reaction from Abby, who whimpers against her mouth. Ellie deepens their kiss in response, teasing briefly with her tongue before breaking off to explore elsewhere.

Ellie is painfully slow as she kisses and licks her way down Abby’s left side. She’s always been a fast learner, and it’s no different when it comes to learning the reactions of new lover, so she knows just the right level of slow and delicate that sets off Abby’s nerve endings. By the time Ellie reaches Abby’s hip to plant a gentle kiss, Abby is hypersensitive and almost jolts in reaction. Ellie starts to kiss in her stomach, curving towards her core. Her tongue slides between well-defined ab muscles, moving downwards. 

Ellie’s mouth gets as far as the start of the thicker, darker hair at the bottom of Abby’s stomach. Using her teeth, she tugs at it, gently enough not to sting but firm enough that the sensation travels downward. Abby lets out a gasp that turns into a moan. She tries to speak, knowingly Ellie is likely planning to move her mouth back up the taller woman’s body, away from where she wants it. She tries to squash her ego down so she can speak, and a quiet, mumbled “Please.” escapes her mouth. Ellie stops what she’s doing and looks up. Her legs nudge Abby’s a little further apart as she responds to Abby. “Did you say something?” 

Abby feels Ellie’s eyes on her, playful but power-hungry, she steels herself and speaks a little louder, “Please.” 

Ellie’s aroused hearing the strain in her voice, desire just overtaking pride. But she likes this game too much to let Abby off quite this easily. She kneels up, legs still holding Abby’s apart, but hands now free to tickle symmetrical patterns across Abby’s inner arms and sides. “Very polite, but I’m not sure what you’re asking for?”

Abby is getting flushed and flustered, the slight tinge of embarrassment and nerves seems to be heightening her arousal somehow. She tries to answer, but stumbles when she realises she doesn’t know if she wants Ellie’s tongue or her hands. She’d enjoy either, willing accept being fucked however Ellie is in the mood for, but can’t bring herself to admit it. Okay, start simple. “For you to fuck me,” she mumbles out, only just audibly. 

Ellie catches her meaning, and, given her inexperience with this, decides not to make Abby speak up to repeat them at a normal level. That can wait until next time. Ellie allows herself to spend a few seconds lost in fantasy, picturing how those soft lips will look when they’re well practiced at begging shamelessly, while Abby’s nerves as she waits continue to add to her intense desire. She’s getting needy now, and she can’t work out if she’s excited or worried about how Ellie will react to that. As she’s wresting with that, Ellie asks the follow up question she’s been dreading, “How would you like me to fuck you, Abby?” 

She should just pick one, if either is fine, she can easily save face if she just picks one. But they’ve worked so hard at building this fragile, complicated relationship on honesty. So much so that even now, even over this, she doesn’t want to lie. Damn. She sighs hard, her body’s need only intensifying as Ellie’s skilful fingers edge towards Abby’s bare breasts. Ellie is still dressed, something that now strikes Abby as a deliberate and effective power move. 

Eventually, she realises that stalling is only making her more uncomfortable, so she relents, even managing to speak a near-normal volume this time. “I can’t decide,” she admits.

“Maybe I should help with that.” Ellie doesn’t leave Abby time to reply. Typically fast and lithe, she’s quickly moved down Abby’s body and slipped her underpants off, stroking each leg as she goes. Her tongue goes straight in for the kill and the hit of pleasure shocks Abby. Ellie laps directly on her partner’s clit for just long enough that Abby feels a rhythm to it emerge, then pulls away. 

Ellie knows her girl will be needier in the end if she leaves enough of a pause better the two “options,” so she fills the time with speech. So that’s option one, fucking you with my tongue. You seemed to like that, I wonder if you’ll feel the same about option two,” she muses. Ellie’s hands have been teasing two now-hard nipples. Her left stands in place while she drags the middle and index fingers of her right hand slowly down Abby’s body. The tease is almost unbearable, and Abby moans in anticipation. Once she reaches Abby’s hot, wet opening she, once again, for straight for the kill. Two fingers slide in easily, and Ellie curves them round, rubbing Abby’s G spot with firm pressure. Her thumb goes to the clit, circling in the same speed and direction as she uses inside. Abby feels as if her whole clit, is enveloped in the stimulation. She knows Ellie will stop any second to ask for a verdict it, and she can’t bear it. Fuck her ego, “Please, please, Ellie, don’t stop, this is what I want.” 

Ellie hasn’t stopped yet but hasn’t acknowledged Abby’s words yet either. She’s on the edge at the idea of that Ellie might stop, so she needs to make sure. “Please, Ellie, tell me you won’t stop. Please, let me orgasm like this. Let me come for you...” She trails off into a loud moan. No longer self-conscious, she’s able to enjoy everything all the more, even the strange pleasure of the sting of begging. 

Ellie looks to be considering her options as she continues with circling Abby inside and out. Abby’s stomach tenses as the fear that she might stop, but eventually Ellie reassures her. “Don’t worry, I’m not cruel enough to stop when I’m fucking some as desperate and needy as you sound.” That time, Ellie’s words trigger a feeling of pure humiliation, but the feeling travels straight down to Abby’s cunt as a jolt of pleasure. The emotional sting barely registers and her face is too flushed to notice and more heat. 

Ellie feels the start of Abby’s orgasm squeeze on her fingers as her insides contract. She keep pace until she feels an intense contraction accompanied by a very loud moan. Abby’s whole body trembles with intense pleasure flowing outwards from her core. Ellie keeps moving in slower, gentle circles until Abby seems to calm and relax. She licks her fingers clean and moves up the bed to snuggle into Abby. Her body is easy enough to read, but how mind might react to the vulnerability she showed as they fucked is unclear, and Ellie’s toppy side doesn’t stop at climax, and protective instincts compel her towards wanting to comfort her lover. Ellie’s turned on, too, and looking forward to sitting on that pretty face, but this is one area of her life (quite possibly the only one) where she’s patient. She makes sure Abby hears her moan loudly and authentically against her ear before she whispers comfort and praise into it. Both of them alone are fragile, nevermind the two of them together, and she doesn’t want Abby feeling more vulnerable than her trauma lets her easier tolerate, so she makes it clear that she enjoyed every word she said, that she cares for her, and that she’s similarly filled with desire, but there’s no rush, no pressure.

If they keep trying to work at it, keep reaching towards empathy, towards the light, then they’ll be fine. So, rest assured, they’ll be fine.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading and I really hope you liked it. 
> 
> I bashed this out in a hurry so I’m unsure how it turned out, but I’m so excited to finally get something down and out there for this ship. (I will continue writing both Abby/Ellie and Dina/Ellie because I ship both and just ignore the conflict, so my other Dina/Ellie works are still getting the planned updates.) 
> 
> I really appreciate hearing from readers so please do leave a comment with your thoughts. I recently set up a tumblr so you can also talk to me there as well if you’d like @PurpleSunriseFanFic


End file.
